Tipping Point

Here's today's treeware column, a quickie review of Canoe Live. It's the latest effort by Quebecor's Sun TV (formerly known as Toronto 1 under different owners) to keep ratings from totally washing out.

If Canoe Live is Quebecor's attempt to keep Sun TV afloat, it is in deep ... uh ... water.

Last night's debut of this collision of TV, Internet and newspaper technology was frantic, frenetic and just plain freaky.

And NOOOOOO, I don't condemn it because I am too old for a bunch of fast-talking young hosts who kept missing their cues and countdowns.

It's just bad news.

<SNIP>

The show was recently hailed by Quebecor chief Pierre Karl Péladeau as the answer to a "tsunami" of technological changes threatening to engulf the conventional "old" media.

"By combining the resources of the Toronto Sun, CANOE.ca, 24 hours and Sun TV, we intend to create a new current affairs approach that will feature significant contributions from citizen journalists," said Paula Davies, executive producer of in-house productions, in a news release.

On Canoe Live, viewers are repeatedly urged to participate by sending in their comments, questions and videos of babies spitting up. The program is also streamed live online.

It would all be innovative if it weren't so 1999.

And that's the gentle bit of this critique.

I felt especially sorry for Toronto Sun TV critic Bill Brioux who actually appeared on this ship of fools, trying mightily to make light of how bad it was. A victim of media concentration, he was in an uncomfortable spot -- although I don't know if he walked willingly to the scaffold or had a gun held to his head.

Whatever. There was no review of the show in the Sun today.

Comments

[sooey]

gee... what are the odds he'll use yours...

[Chris]

what's the deal with that anchor? She was head-nodding three seconds into Sheila Copps' first response and continued with a series of camera poses throughout. I bet if you quizzed her on Copps' answers (let alone her bio) she wouldn't be able to formulate a coherent sentence.
this is so bad it's good...she called a reward an award and used today twice in a sentence.

[Montreal Simon]

Hey Antonia thanks for the tip.But I'm afraid you've sold this turkey short. I've just watched the last fifteen minutes and I still can't stop laughing. It's so bad it's a hoot!Or a hooter... There's the appalling writing obviously aimed at engaging the attention of six-year-olds. And the moronic choice of subjects. I tuned in to find Miss Luu earnestly discussing whether one should pull off a bandaid slowly or quickly. But the funniest part is the way they humiliate the Sun columnists by always cutting them off. When Peter Worthington wanted to keep on raving they just shrunk his picture into a tiny ball and then zoomed it into the ether still blabbing away. And then when Greg Weston was doing a phone interview Miss Luu interrupts to say "sorry Greg I don't want to cut you off but...."(click) These poor Sun suckers are going to have to learn how to reduce everything to two baby talk sentences.Or the humiliation will go on and on. And then there was the grand finale. They begin by showing today's Sunshine Girl, complete with an extra closeup slow zoom across her massive breasts which made it look like we were climbing Kilimanjaro. Then Miss Luu comes out of that talking very seriously to her two male co-hosts about who was going to win the Miss Hooters contest tonight. And the guys respond with something about whether the loser who is trying to get laid with elay,is really a virgin. Duh? Talk about a show that needs to get hooted off the air. But I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. Which clearly won't be long...

[Glowbull]

The part I saw was Peter Worthington coming on and the airhead host, who can't string together a sentence and fills dead-air by just sitting there and smiling like a dimwit, trying to kiss his ass by saying she was "honored" he was on the show. Worthington rolled his eyes and said "Yeah, so?" as in "Can we get on with it already?" Worthington started talking about Canadian soldiers' role abroad, and this American host who knows zip about Canada couldn't even do the interview because she knows squat-all about Canadian politics, military or anything else. Finally she just cut Worthington off after only about a minute or so because she had nothing to add and had no idea how to discuss the issue. When she cut him off, Worthington actually said "We can keep going here, if you'd like." LOL! He knew there was no damn way she could because she's way out of her depth.

What a train wreck.

[JC]

I agree the host is the worst thing about a really really really bad show. I just looked at that online video of it and the twit was getting disproportionately orgasmic over band-aids and first aid kits. She asked "why is it important to know about cuts"?

BECAUSE YOU CAN DIE FROM CAPILLARY BLEEDING DUMBASS!!!!

This chick is horrible and can't ask an intelligent question to save her life.

Janette Luu is purely hair and teeth for the camera. Second, she's an American who recently moved to Toronto from Indiana. What would somebody from Indiana know about Toronto? According to the website of where she used to work, she took the Canoe Live job to work in a large market. Silly girl, maybe she should have researched Sun TV a bit better and avoided leaving a steady gig to hop aboard a sinking ship that nobody watches.

Hey Janette, you’ve got a speck on your teeth.